Mabrian Technologies, the leading company in Tourism Intelligence and sentiment analysis, reveals the evolution of traveler behavior and motivations from 2019 to the present.
Given that 2023 is definitely the year of a return to normality for tourism globally, Mabrian has analyzed whether the changes in the behavior of travelers detected after the pandemic would be maintained or if, on the contrary, they would return to tourist activities. traditional.
To get this answer, Mabrian has studied the behavior and spontaneous preferences of travelers worldwide using Active Listening. This methodology is based on Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (Natural Language Processing) techniques to analyze more than 400 million interactions related to tourism on Social Networks during the observed period (first semester of 2019 to the first semester of 2023). .
The results of this study were presented during the webinar organized by AVIAREPS entitled "Changes in Traveler Behavior and Trends", where in addition to the Mabrian study, Marriot International and Qatar Tourism presented their analyzes on this topic.
How tourists travel now
The main conclusion that emerges from the study is that experiential activities or motivations are replacing conventional travel motivations. By "experiential", activities related to well-being, active lifestyle, nature, and gastronomy are considered. On the other hand, conventional travel motivations have been defined as art and culture activities, sun and sand, family trips, shopping and nightlife.
By dividing these motivations into two different blocks, the data shows how experiential activities have increased by 10 percentage points in the last 4 years compared to conventional activities. In June 2023, the proportion of experiential motivations was already almost 50/50, which is highly significant, considering that in June 2019, only art and culture and sun and sand represented 41% of motivations. Travel.
The activities that have become more relevant during these years, reaching unprecedented levels of interest, are active tourism, nature and well-being. Regarding the first two, the data shows a clear turning point from 2021, corroborating the effects of the pandemic on this type of motivation to travel. Wellness has also seen steady growth since 2019.
On the other hand, the conventional activities that have lost the greatest percentage of relevance are art and culture, as well as sun and sand, which now represent only 34% of travel motivations, losing 7 percentage points since 2019.
Carlos Cendra, Director of Marketing and Communication at Mabrian, comments: "The way we travel is constantly changing. From traditional sun and beach vacations in coastal destinations and culture and shopping in cities, to disconnecting and discovering experiences where the connection with the environment and ourselves is key.There is an evident impact of the pandemic and the effect of being confined that made us realize how important it is to enjoy the outdoors and feel good and healthy during our free time, which has become ingrained in the motivations of travelers.
Mabrian points out that it is essential that destinations and tourism companies detect new global trends among travelers in an agile manner, while at the same time working to offer a tourism product that is as diversified as possible and in line with new trends. The high dependence on specific tourism products causes inefficiencies related to a high dependence on certain source markets and high seasonality patterns. These factors are of great importance when it comes to promoting the
sustainability of the destination.
Source: Mabrian.